The National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime ( no, Økokrim) is

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

's central unit for fighting

economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

and

environmental crime Environmental crime is an illegal act which directly harms the environment. These illegal activities involve the environment, wildlife, biodiversity and natural resources. International bodies such as, G8, Interpol, European Union, United Natio ...

s. The unit, created in 1989, has its main office in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...

. Økokrim is both a police unit and a

prosecution A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...

authority. The current director is Pål Lønseth. The unit is organized in multidisciplinary teams headed by public prosecutors. Each team has a specific field of expertise, such as corruption, computer crime or fraud.

Cases

The organization has played an important role in some major legal cases. In 2003, Økokrim arrested Mullah Krekar, alleged leader of the

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

Islamist group,

Ansar al-Islam Ansar al-Islam in Kurdistan ( ku, ئەنسارولئیسلام له کوردستان),Chalk, Peter, ''Encyclopedia of Terrorism'' Volume 1, 2012, ABC-CLIO simply called Ansar al-Islam ( ku, ئەنسارولئیسلام), also nicknamed the Kurdi ...

2002

After

Jon Lech Johansen Jon Lech Johansen (born November 18, 1983 in Harstad, Norway), also known as DVD Jon, is a Norwegian programmer who has worked on reverse engineering data formats. He wrote the DeCSS software, which decodes the Content Scramble System used fo ...

released

DeCSS DeCSS is one of the first free computer programs capable of decrypting content on a commercially produced DVD video disc. Before the release of DeCSS, open source operating systems (such as BSD and Linux) could not play encrypted video DVDs. ...

, he was taken to court by Økokrim. The trial opened in the

Oslo District Court Oslo District Court ( no, Oslo tingrett) is a district court located in Oslo, Norway. This court is based at the Oslo Courthouse in the city of Oslo. The court serves the entire city of Oslo and the court is subordinate to the Borgarting Court of ...

on 9 December 2002 with Johansen pleading not guilty and the defense, by Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that no illegal access was obtained to anyone else's information, since Johansen owned the

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

s himself. They also argued that it is legal under Norwegian law to make copies of such data for personal use. The verdict was announced on 7 January 2003, acquitting Johansen of all charges.

2003

Økokrim filed an appeal on 20 January 2003 to the Johansen verdict and on 28 February that the

Borgarting Court of Appeal The Borgarting Court of Appeal ( no, Borgarting lagmannsrett) is one of six intermediate courts of appeal in the Kingdom of Norway. The Court is located in the city of Oslo. The court has jurisdiction over the counties of Oslo and western Viken. ...

had agreed to hear the case. Johansen's second DeCSS trial began on 2 December 2003, and resulted in an acquittal on 22 December 2003. Økokrim did make a further appeal of the case to the Supreme Court.

2006

In 2006, Økokrim filed indictments were filed against four members of The 5 Percent Community for breach of trust with fraudulent intent. The main individuals responsible, including Henrik Ellefsen and

Jørn Ronnie Tagge T5PC (or The 5 Percent Community) was a controversial Norwegian Multi-level marketing company that went bankrupt in November 2004. As per November 2004, it had among 50,000 members (most papers claim 70,000, however) it is claimed that its members ...

, were convicted on charges of fraud in December 2007.

2011

In 2011 the agency investigated 28 cases. 28 persons were convicted, and the conviction rate was 86%.

2012

The agency's desired conviction rate is 90%.

2016

On 8 March 2016, Økokrim seized the Popcorn-Time.no domain name. Norwegian Police Seize Popcorn-Time “Information” Site
TorrentFreak Retrieved March 8, 2016 The site did not host the

Popcorn Time Popcorn Time is a multi-platform, free software BitTorrent client that includes an integrated media player. The application provides a piracy-based alternative to subscription-based video streaming services such as Netflix. Popcorn Time us ...

application but instead had articles and links to sites that offered the application.

References

External links

English website of the ØKOKRIM unitEFF Topics: Free Jon Johansen! - Norway v. Johansen Case
{{authority control Law enforcement in Norway Government agencies of Norway